How does oil palm plantation impact bird species diversity? a case study from PKWE Estate, West Kalimantan

Abstract

The prospect of Indonesian palm oil industry nowadays tends positive and shows an increasing trend. This matter also caused many negative responses to the presence of environmental damage and biodiversity loss, including bird species diversity. Since there are only a few researches related to oil palm plantation impact on bird species diversity, this research is necessary to enrich the data related. Data retrieval was carried out on March 2018, in PKWE Estate, West Kalimantan, using strip transect method in six different types of habitat/land cover. Two types of land cover which are secondary forest and shrubs considered as land cover before the establishment of oil palm plantation (baseline), while the others are habitat types that exist in oil palm plantation. The result shows that both baselines have the highest number of species among all habitat types, with a total of 26 species were found in each baseline. However, as a unity, turn out that the level of bird species diversity in oil palm plantation area is higher than the baseline area, where 33 species of bird were found (Dmg = 6.98). The existence of oil palm plantation also has changed the composition of bird species, the highest similarity index with both baselines is showed by old growth of oil palm. The change of species composition caused ten birds species lost and 17 species were gained on the secondary forest cover, meanwhile, 11 species lost and 18 species were gained in shrubs.